Word.ws English Dictionary

fade-away

fade-away is the alternative spelling of fadeaway.

Meaning of fadeaway

Noun

fadeaway (plural fadeaways)

  1. An instance of fading away, of diminishing in proximity or intensity.
    • In his final years he [John Ogdon] gave an interview to an American journalist who noticed that "his handshake is a boneless fadeaway["].2014 May 11, Ivan Hewett, “Piano Man: a Life of John Ogdon by Charles Beauclerk, review: A new biography of the great British pianist whose own genius destroyed him [print version: A colossus...
  2. A jump shot made while jumping backwards, away from the basket, with the goal to create space between the shooter and the defender, making it much harder to block.
    • He taunted the Knicks instead with hanging jumpers, impossible fadeaways and layups in traffic.2009 February 3, Howard Beck, “Bryant Puts on a Show, Setting Garden Records”, in New York Times
  3. (slang) The ending of a personal relationship by stopping any contact with the other party and not providing an explanation.
    • Why some people choose to do the infamous "fadeaway" instead of a clean break?

Forms of fade-away

pluralfade-aways

Questions about fade-away

What is fade-away the alternative spelling of?
Fade-away is the alternative spelling of fadeaway.

Words near fade-away in the dictionary

  1. fade outs
  2. fade time
  3. fade times
  4. fade to black
  5. fade to white
  6. fade-away
  7. fade-aways
  8. fade-in
  9. fade-ins
  10. fade-out
  11. fade-outs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fade-away (page history and authors); fadeaway (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “fade-away.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fade-away. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.